We're going to...

We had Little Bear open the envelope and read the letter out loud. His reaction was so sweet! He repeated it a few times as it registered that WE WERE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!

We then have the kids each a little bag that had a bunch of individually wrapped Disney themed gifts. They were each able to pick two to open right then and the rest were to be opened randomly throughout the drive to Florida. 

They were all so excited! Pequeño even pretended to call Abuela. 

Surprise Vacation Prep

We made a somewhat last minute decision to take a big trip with the kids. They have no idea where we are going but they know that it involves a lot of driving and missing school.

To keep it a secret, my last few nights have been filled with a lot of staying up late to get things prepped for the trip and then hiding them around the house in various places. 

So far, all suitcases have been packed, surprise letter (for them to read once we are already on our way) has been written,

Travel snack boxes have been packed (to avoid the endless "I'm hungry. I don't want THAT snack."'s the older two have their own snack boxes which they will have access to while we drive (they should last both the drive down and drive back and give them plenty of choices... We'll also be stopping at various places and will have sandwiches packed and plan to stop for dinner somewhere.)

Shirts have been made, small entertainment gifts (notebooks, crayons, sticker books, etc.) have been wrapped for random opening along the drive (to avoid whining due to boredom)

Now we just need the day to get here so that we can leave at 3 or 4 am (so that *hopefully* the kids will sleep for a good portion of the beginning of the trip) so we can get the fun started!

Little Bear's Field Day

Little Bear was really excited that today was going to be his grade's "field day". The reasons that he was so excited were A) Getting to be outside for 1.5 more hours which is basically like having recess most of the day (because they did also have recess in the morning), B) Parents were invited and both Papa and I (plus the little ones) were going to be there to watch, and C) They were going to do tug of war.

The school had it set up as a few different stations where the groups of kids would rotate once a certain amount of time had passed. Little Bear says that his favorite game was the "garbage game" by which he means the one where they pretended to throw "garbage" (the balls) into "Oscar the Grouch's garbage can" (a circle made by gym mats). Inside the circle of mats, there were kids (who rotated every few minutes) that were throwing the "garbage" back out. Then when the whistle would blow, the teacher would see how many balls were inside the circle. Then they would start again with different kids inside the circle until it was time to switch stations. I think that this was his favorite station last year too.

There was also a knock the pin/guard your pin game where they had to try to knock other player's bowling pins down while guarding their own. Whenever their pin fell (which happened a lot) they had to do 10 jumping jacks before they could stand it up and play again.

They also did a few races like bouncing on a ball, potato sack, and a clothespin race.

The last thing that they did was the tug of war. Each of the classes got to do it against all of the other classes at least once and they all had a great time. The classes that weren't at the rope would cheer for the kids who were playing and afterwards, the teams would yell "Good Job Mr./Mrs X's class" once they were done.

The younger two had fun cheering for Little Bear and his class throughout the whole thing.

Park Day

Today was the first time that the weather reminded me that Fall is coming soon. The younger kids had a playgroup scheduled for right after we dropped Little Bear at school but we drove home to grab them sweatshirts instead. As much as I love fall, I'm hoping that we'll have summer weather a little longer.

It was our fist time going to this park and the kids had a great time. Pudge played with his friends most of time and Pequeño went back and forth between climbing, swinging, and wanting to be held.

We'll definitely be going back with Little Bear (and Papa) however it was a little difficult because the playground is more appropriate for the older kids than it is for Pequeño. 

Zoo with Grandma

In August, Grandma came to stay with us for a few days so we decided to go to the zoo. 

Little Bear was interested to learn that the placement of an animals eyes is telling of their food chain behavior.

"Eyes in the front, the animal hunts. Eyes on the side, the animal hides."

The little ones were interested in looking at the skulls and yelled "Thank you!" To the zoo employee when she was done explaining everything.

There's either an alligator or a crocodile in this area (Little Bear will be ashamed that I don't know since he explained the differences to us while we were there.)

Of course the older kids had to milk the cow again. I think that this is one of their favorite things about coming to this zoo.

Pudge, Grandma, and Daddy decided to brush the goats. (All of the kids got to feed them but Pudge was the only one who wanted to go into the fence when the guy asked.)

The kangaroos are still a big favorite as well. We weren't able to go into the area that day since they were all on the walking path. The kids didn't mind though and had fun telling Grandma all of the facts that they remembered about kangaroos. Little Bear also had some questions for the zookeeper who was great and very knowledgeable with them.

 Pudge's ABSOLUTE FAVORITE animal (since going on vacation) has been turtles so he was keeping his eye out for them. When we finally got to them, he just wanted to hang out and watch them for a while even though everyone else was checking out all of the animals in that area. So we let him watch them for a little bit while Daddy, Grandma, and the other boys started going towards Little Bear's favorite animals.

The wolves! It's hard to tell but there are three of them in this picture. 

Then we saw Pequeño's favorite which is the horses.

We walked around for a little while longer and then went on a scenic drive to look at some of the local scenery and new housing developments. 

Peanut Butter and Jelly

The younger kids wanted PB&J for lunch today after spending the morning running around outside. So, I decided to let them help make their sandwiches (with a lot of supervision). I just put the peanut butter and jelly onto the bread and let them spread it out. They had so much fun and Pudge was really proud of himself.

Summer's Over

I decided to take a break from most social media for the summer and the kids just went back to school in the last couple weeks.So I have a lot of catching up to do with uploading pictures and our summer fun in the next few posts. BUT, I wanted to post the kids back to school pictures first!

Little Bear was ready to go back to school. He was looking forward to being able to have access to the entire school library this year since previously they were only allowed to borrow from their grade level section.

 Pudge was SO excited to go to preschool. He woke up early and asked if it was time to go every few minutes. He saw his friends as soon as we got to the school (and he already knew that one was going to be in his class) and was ready to stay without so much as a goodbye.

 Pequeño didn't want to stay still for a picture (and tried to wipe off the white erase board) but he was ready for his class too. He walked right in an started playing without a problem.